The Japanese is under the cut, so I could keep the formatting (Japanese on one side, romaji on the other). There's probably a way, if I had super HTML skills, that I could have done all the formatting just in HTML... but... my HTML skills are really, really, really (...) really limited.

Edit: Just realized I only got the first page of the romaji and stuff. Grr. So--anyone who sees this and wants the whole thing? Leave me a comment, and I'll send it to you!

correction: Where it says 月夜, in the romaji column, that should be tsukiyô, if I'm going to be consistent with the transliteration I had going. It's a long o. You can represent that as tsukiyou (the way I wrote it in the romaji)--but that's not what I had been doing elsewhere. Hmm, there are probably other errors too...

And, my attempt at a translation. Check the comments section; I'm counting on wakanomori to make suggestions for tweaks and changes. Questions and suggestions welcome!

Edit ちょっとやそっと turns out to have a different sense from what I thought, so the line I had translated "I just kinda sorta can't be satisfied" should actually be "I'm not easily satisfied"--like in the subtitles on the video (other things in that video are dead wrong, though--国家公務員 doesn't mean politician! It means government employee or state (national) employee.) So anyway, I've fixed the translation.

Normal disclaimers: I'm pretty rusty at translating, haven't been back to Japan in more than a decade, and it's a pop song, and you know how much sense English-lyric pop songs make, so don't expect any better from Japanese ones...

Keep Tryin'by Utada Hikaru (rough translation by Asakiyume)

“I don’t care about anything”Wearing an expression that says it’s all the same to meActually, I was praying all the whileBegging for nonexistant thingsI'm not easily satisfiedSo, “Keep trying”

Watching the ten o’clock comedy programI ease the exhaustion of a day’s work, and yetI get kind of sick of being aloneThat’s important, too, I think…

Since last year, everything seems like such a pain in the neckI really want the prizeThat only the challenger can receive

The truth is, I’m more hungry than anyoneAnd even though I hide my confused feelings,Each morning I want to beat up on the mirrorThat reflects that bare face of mine, a touch fainthearted.

A wish on a moonlit night is a beautiful thing,Make it your target—then leap into the mudLady, let’s go!

“I don’t care about anything”All the time I was adopting a cool poseTo tell the truth, I was struggling.Precious lifeSo worried about what everyone thinks,You need to rest a little

“ ‘Time is money’Don’t say in the future that all you’ll be is a state employeeYou have no dreams!‘More than affection, Money’”--Even if your darling is just a salaryman, isn’t that okay,So long as you love each other?

“I don’t care about anything”Wearing an expression that says it’s all the same to meActually, I was praying all the whileBegging for nonexistant thingsI really, really can’t be satisfiedSo, “Keep trying”

Playing at bobbing alongIn the river of life [in this world]The rising and sinking are pretty fierce.No matter whenThe only thing whose worth doesn’t change is you

Edit: Youtube took down the video that goes with the song, but I found another site that still has it--watch it while you still can--and, added bonus, it has subtitles (so you can see someone else's take on the song :-)

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I had figured out parts of it but never really stopped to translate it, man I love this song even more now! especially:

“ ‘Time is money’Don’t say in the future that all you’ll be is a state employeeYou have no dreams!‘More than affection, Money’”--Even if your darling is just a salaryman, isn’t that okay,So long as you love each other?

I like the theme of the song..."keep trying" although I think the writer put too much in one song and one or two of the lines are confusing.....or maybe I'm just getting old and don't "get it" anymore. This is one of those things my old writer's group could really "pick" apart.

I think a lot of stuff is just hinted at or meant to be impressionistic--and I'm not sure how great the lyrics really are, as poetry, but what some of those impressionistic phrases conjure up really appeals to me--a kind of bittersweetness, but the desire to keep trying and embrace life.

Yeah, I've been practicing singing too, but it's hard because she runs some syllables all together and s-t-r-e-t-ch-es out others. (Like when she says "jûji no owarai bangumi," she scrunches "bangumi" right up so it sounds more like "bngmi") But I do love the song!